


Scars, Warm Against His Palms

by Mithen



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-02
Updated: 2010-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce comes home to Gotham and Harvey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars, Warm Against His Palms

The wind is cold, coming in across the ocean and slipping by the man standing on the pier.  Spume scuds across the waves, kicked up by the wind.  The man pulls his trenchcoat more tightly around him, looking down into the water, his reflection scattering and reforming under his gaze.  The water is dark and cold and deep, and the man smiles to himself, somewhat grimly.  Not yet, you bastard.  Not yet.

A cruise ship pulls slowly up to dock, and the man feels a surge of nervous anticipation.  It's been a year.  He did his best.  He tried to hold things together. 

He isn't sure if he means Gotham or himself. 

But either way, he's managed.  He's waited.  And now the ship is here.  He's here.  The man feels something that's half-fear and half-desire and entirely _his_ snake through his body.

Bruce Wayne gets off the ship, flanked by his two boys.  He stops in front of the man, his eyes wide with guileless surprise.  "Harvey," he says.

Harvey Dent steps forward.  "Welcome home, Bruce."  He holds out his arms.  "Got a hug for a friend?"

Bruce steps into the embrace unhesitatingly, and as his arms close around Harvey (so strong, so strong, holding him together), Harvey hears himself make a small sound, tight and pained and full of longing.  "I've been waiting," he whispers.

Bruce puts his lips close to Harvey's ear, his voice brushing against him.  "I have too," he whispers back, and Harvey can hear the promise, musk and smoke and light.  His knees go weak.  At last.

: : :

Harvey Dent is lying next to his lover of two weeks.  Two weeks and two days, to be precise, but Harvey is trying not to be precise.  He brushes his hands over Bruce's body, feeling the scars under his palms.  He pauses at a silvery mark on the playboy's shoulder.  It could have been caused by an errant ski pole, by a fencing foil gone awry, by a crashed racing car.

It could have been caused by a glancing blow from a .22 caliber bullet.

Harvey puts his lips to it briefly.

He looks up to see Bruce looking at him, all trace of the playboy stripped from his eyes, which have gone dark and solemn.  "Harvey," he starts, his voice lower than Harvey has ever heard it, deeper, more velvety.  Not quite familiar.  Far from strange.  "Thank you.  For taking care of Gotham.  While I was gone."  The phrases are clipped, not curt, but uncertain, as if he's debating each phrase before letting it hang in the air between them.

He could mean Harvey's day job, his legal work.  He could mean that.

"She needs protection," Harvey answers.  "From all the wackos and the nutcases, the lunatics--" Bruce's mouth twitches somewhere between amusement and chagrin and Harvey breaks off.  "It was my pleasure.  My honor," he says seriously.

Bruce props himself up on his elbows and takes a very deep breath.  "There's something I should tell you.  I should have told you long ago.  Maybe if I had..."   He reaches out, brushes his thumb along one side of Harvey's face. "I should have told you, Harv.  That I'm--"

Harvey reaches out and puts his hand across Bruce's mouth, not at all gently.  "Shut up," he says, hearing the growl in his voice, afraid for the first time.  "Don't be a fucking idiot, Bruce.  You can't trust me.  Never trust me."

Above the silencing hand, Bruce's eyes are sadder than Harvey has ever seen them.  He doesn't try to speak, and Harvey doesn't know if he's angry that Bruce won't repeat himself or overjoyed that he tried that once.

Or both emotions at the same time.

Bruce reaches up and takes Harvey's hand in his own, pressing a kiss into the palm, still looking straight at Harvey.  "I love you," he says, very softly, and Harvey feels his heart turn sideways, unbearable.  Because he doesn't just mean Harvey, he means all of it, all of him, lost and broken and unhealable...

"That's fine," he says gruffly. "Go ahead and love me all you want, just don't trust me."

Bruce leans back into the shadows, a smile on his face, and the moment has passed.  "Come over here, big boy," he says, his voice mildly pleasant again, the dangerous velvet gone, "And I'll love you all you want."

: : :

Later, when the dark waves have closed over his head again, when wholeness is no more than a dream, he will remember that moment.  When he flips his coin and it lands with the scarred side up, he will brush his thumb across its cold surface, feeling the flaws.

He'll remember other scars, warm against his palms.

He will remember that scars are not always a sign of brokenness.


End file.
